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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Rio Grande Games | Dracula

Dracula

Price: £19.99

2-player game, ages 12+ Count Dracula has left his home in Transylvania to travel by ship to London, where he plans to hunt for innocent victims. The famous Dr. van Helsing got wind of Dracula¹s plans and immediately caught the next carriage to London. It is a race against time! Van Helsing tries to find and destroy all of the vampire\'s coffins, while the count tries to find five victims. Will the horror end tonight or will the count\'s reign of terror continue? ++++++++++++++++++++ Counter Magazine review ++++++++++++++++++++ 2 players, 30 minutes designed by Michael Rieneck reviewed by Mike Ruffhead Dracula is the latest in the growing range of very good, 2-player gamesfrom Kosmos that includes Lost Cities, Caesar & Cleopatra, and Babel(to name just my favourites). Better still, it has been reproduced in Englishby Rio Grande for the benefit of those of us whose feeble German is inadequateto deal with the limited amount of text on the cards. The story line isthat Dracula has arrived in London in search of fresh victims, hotly pursuedby his nemesis Van Helsing. What follows is essentially a race betweenthe Count\'s hunt for his victims and Van Helsing\'s attempts to locate anddestroy all of his enemy\'s hideouts. The game box contains two card decks for each player, a wooden dobber eachfor Dracula and Van Helsing, various other wooden markers and a game boardshowing a birds-eye view of a vaguely Victorian street plan which showstwelve locations in a three by four grid. The aim of the game is for each player to locate his opponent\'s five ``target\'\'cards before the same is done to him. For Dracula, the targets are fivetoothsome young ladies while Van Helsing has to find five coffin cardsrepresenting the crypts where Dracula sleeps away the daylight hours. Each player takes their own dobber, a set of four ``energy\'\' cubes and twodecks of cards. The first deck consists of fifteen encounter cards - thefive targets mentioned above, nine allies (vampires or vampire-hunters)of varying combat strength and one special ``Symbol of Power\'\'. The seconddeck provides ten action cards for each player, one of which will be playedeach turn. Each of these is rated for the distance a character can move,fighting strength, ability to erect and move barriers, plus one of a rangeof useful but not over-powerful special actions. To start the game each player selects six of their fifteen encounter cardswhich are shuffled together and distributed randomly and face-down, oneto each of the twelve locations on the board. The rest are retained inhand and will be used to replace cards removed during the course of thegame. You are free to select as many of your own target cards as you wish- though less than two could be very risky indeed as you will see later.Players then shuffle their action deck and deal themselves five cards toprovide a starting hand, setting aside the second set of five cards foruse when the first five have been exhausted. The Dracula and Van Helsingdobbers are placed in their starting positions in diagonally opposite cornersof the board, and play begins with Dracula taking the first move. On each turn a player may move his dobber to a new location and then mustplay an action card. You can move within the grid as far as you wish,but at the end of movement, the action card that you play must show atleast the number of spaces moved - or you lose an energy cube. At each location entered, a player may examine the encounter card thatis present. If it proves to be one of your own cards, you may secretlyexchange it with another card from your resource deck and then continuemovement. This adds a crucial element of bluff and double bluff to thegame as you may exchange a strong ally for a target, or vice versa, orjust replace the same card. If the encounter card is one of your opponent\'s,then it must be dealt with, and movement for that turn ends. Target cardsare automatically captured when discovered. ``Ally\'\' cards must be foughtby comparing their combat strength with the combat value on the encountercard you played that turn. If you win, you remove that card from play andreplace it with one from your own hand. If you lose, you lose an energycube, and the victorious ally remains in place but is turned face-downagain. If the result is a draw, the ally remains in place but you do notlose a cube. Should you find your opponent\'s ``symbol of power\'\' you takean automatic cube loss, and as the loss of your last energy cube is aninstant win for your opponent, you will see that boldness must be balancedby caution. This is particularly so if the encounter cards you have inhand are weak for combat. After movement and combat you have an opportunityto place or move roadblocks which serve to inhibit movement - for exampleVan Helsing might want to make it difficult for Dracula to get to a particularlocation where he knows one of the victims is located - or equally he mighttry and bluff him by apparently trying to keep him away from somewherecontaining a card that he actually wants him to find - the symbol of powerfor instance. The final action in a turn is to use the ``special power\'\'allowed by the action card. These generally convey some small advantagefor the next turn such as a free move, recovery of an ally from the deadpile, or an increase in combat strength. Play alternates until someone locates all five of their targets and winsthe game. The only other twist is that whenever Van Helsing and Draculaoccupy the same location, the moving player may decide that both playersmust show each other their encounter deck. If you then find in your opponent\'shands all the remaining target cards that you have not already capturedthen you win instantly. Thus there is a nice tension between having yourtarget cards on the board - where they are vulnerable in the normal courseof play - or ``safe\'\' in your hand but risking a quick defeat if you arecaught with all your eggs in the one basket. Given the above, an instant win is possible from the very first move, butgenerally the game will take twenty to thirty minutes as both players graduallydiscover their opponent\'s targets, run out of energy cubes, and build upa mental picture of what is where on the board. Clearly, a functioningshort-term memory is required, but there is hope even for Mike Clifford,as an apparent mistake may serve to bluff your opponent. He can never becertain whether your move onto a location containing one of your own cardswas designed to switch something valuable to you or dangerous to him. Dracula provides an excellent blend of bluff, cunning card play, deductivelogic, and a little bit of luck. The rules are simple and intuitive, soyou can play straight from the box. The theme fits the game like a glove,and it genuinely plays in half an hour leaving you wanting more. I haveplayed Dracula more often than any other game acquired this year, and haveyet to do so with anyone who didn\'t want an instant rematch. Highly recommended.

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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Rio Grande Games | Dracula

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